Weekly output: PR pitches, Google I/O (x2), photo-album apps, smartphone multimedia

Posted on May 19, 2013 by robpegoraro

I spent the workweek in San Francisco–as in, my flight left National Airport at 8 a.m. Monday, and my flight home landed at Dulles around 6:30 p.m. Friday. Next week will also involve a long commute: I’m off to Las Vegas tomorrow for the CTIA 2013 wireless trade show.

5/13/2013: Your Brand Message Sucks: How to Pitch Your “Amazing” Product to Journalists, Influence HR

I spoke on a panel with Reputation Capital’s Mary Ellen Slayter, the Starr Conspiracy’s Lance Haun and Angles PR’s Ania Kubicki about good and bad ways PR types can deal with the press. (What was I doing at an HR-oriented conference? Mary Ellen’s an old friend from the Post and invited me onto the panel.)

I talked to WTOP about Google’s I/O news on Wednesday, but that interview doesn’t seem to have been preserved on the station’s index for that day. Drat!

Google I:O Discovery News post

5/16/2013: Google Probably Knew About This Post Before Me, Discovery News

The headline for this Google I/O recap popped into my head almost fully formed. I’m glad the editors stuck with that; I’m a little disappointed nobody picked up the Suzanne Vega reference in the excerpt that shows up in search results and on D News’ home page.

I was interviewed again that evening–this time at a press reception, along with USA Today’s Ed Baig, by Thai tech journalist Chatpawee Trichachawanwong. I don’t know if that piece has run, or how insightful Ed and I might sound in it. (We didn’t have much time to prepare.)

5/17/2013: Google’s I/O News: A Reminder Of How Apps Don’t Just Write Themselves, Disruptive Competition Project

Here, I tried to put Google’s developer-focused I/O news in the context of iOS’s continued lead in one important area: profit potential for the average developer.

5/19/2013: Q&A: What’s the best basic Windows photo program?, USA Today

A question from a relative looking to prune the assortment of photo apps on his laptop led to this column. It also includes a tip about the difficulty you may have sharing some of the neater multimedia-enhanced photos your phone’s camera can take.

Most of this week’s posts on Sulia covered particular I/O announcements or sessions–for instance, a talk on Android’s design principles, an upcoming fix for buggy Bluetooth, an uncertain detail about Google’s stock-Android version of Samsung’s Galaxy S 4–but I also reviewed the Lyft and SideCar ride-sharing services and described my experience being served, slowly, by a robot bartender.

5/20/2013, 12:52 p.m. And here’s my brief Flickr set from I/O 2013.

About these ads

Weekly output: SideCar, Internet sales taxes, group-play apps, Do Not Call, Android screen lock

Posted on May 12, 2013 by robpegoraro

Nothing too dramatic this week, but first thing Monday morning I’m on the plane to SFO for two conferences: Influence HR on Monday, where I’m speaking on a panel about media relations (disclosure: the organizers are picking up my airfare), and Google I/O Wednesday through Friday.

5/6/2013: SideCar Approaches A Regulatory On-Ramp, Disruptive Competition Project

This ride-sharing service aims to match drivers with time to spare on their existing routes with people heading in the same general direction. The D.C. Taxi Commission, along with other local regulators, sees it as an illegal taxi service. SideCar is pleading its case with the public but also with elected representatives: my interview with CEO Sunil Paul was delayed 45 minutes because he was finishing up a breakfast meeting with Ward 3 city councilmember Mary Cheh.

5/8/2013: Expert: Online sales tax would make real difference to main street, Voice of Russia American Edition

Harvard Business School professor Benjamin G. Edelman and I talked about the Marketplace Fairness Act, the bill that would require most Internet retailers to collect sales taxes for states that simplify their tax regimes.

5/10/2013: Group-Playback Apps Let You Choose Your Own Copyright Adventure, Disruptive Competition Project

I thought there might be an interesting piece about the copyright-law implications of Samsung’s Group Play app, which lets you play one song through multiple devices at once; after encountering a similar, Web-based app at the Day of Fosterly event last weekend, I decided there was.

5/12/2013: Will spam calls ever stop?, USA Today

A query on my neighborhood’s mailing list about a clearly illegal telemarketing call we’ve received a couple of times led me to revisit the topic of spam calls–and spam texts. There’s also a tip about two ways to strengthen the pattern-lock option on Android phones.

On Sulia, I noted two unexpectedly gutsy tech-policy bills–one from Sen. John McCain that would basically blow up much of the TV business, another from Reps. Zoe Lofgren, Anna Eshoo, Jared Polis and Thomas Massie that would repair the Digital Millennium Copyright Act’s anti-circumvention clause–and shared Rep. Jason Chaffetz’s low opinion of Congressional tech literacy. I also related news about United Airlines’ upcoming switch from drop-down screens to streaming media on its A319s and A320s, at the cost of its Channel 9 air-traffic-control audio. And I wrote a sponsored post about Betabeat’s startup-pitch webisode series that, apparently, almost nobody read.

Weekly output: tech PR, cybersecurity and wiretapping, 1776, Tech Night Owl, unlimited data, charging cables

Posted on May 5, 2013 by robpegoraro

According to this list, I spent more time talking about my job than actually doing it (and it’s not even counting the roughly three hours I spent talking to local startups at Day of Fosterly Saturday). That’s not actually true, but it’s not far from the truth either.

4/30/2013: Meet the Tech Media, BusinessWire

I talked about the intersections of technology, the media and public relations with Washington Technology editor Nick Wakeman, freelance writer Andrew Feinberg, Washington Business Journal reporter Bill Flook and Potomac Tech Wire editor Paul Sherman at the Tysons Corner Marriott.

5/1/2013: Government To Industry: Secure Your Systems, But Also Make Them Easy To Wiretap, Disruptive Competition Project

This post started when I read my old Post colleague Ellen Nakashima’s front-page story about a campaign to compel Internet services to provide real-time decryption of their encrypted communications services for law-enforcement inquiries. Then I thought about how that effort might square with the last two years of debate over what the Feds can do to get private industry to strengthen its cybersecurity defenses–and realized how that paralleled mid-1990s arguments over the government’s “Clipper chip” scheme.

5/3/2013: Media outreach breakfast, 1776

Déjà vu set in as I once again found myself onstage with Paul Sherman to talk about how the media covers tech startups–this time at the 1776 incubator on 15th Street downtown, almost directly across from the Post.

5/4/2013: May 4, 2013 —Tim Angel, Rob Pegoraro and Daniel Eran Dilger, Tech Night Owl Live

I returned to Gene Steinberg’s podcast to talk about Apple’s cliff-diving stock price (and what that says about Wall Street’s short-term judgment), Samsung’s Galaxy S 4 and the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s latest report on how well some major tech companies protect your data from government inquiries.

5/5/2013: Why hang on to your unlimited data plan?, USA Today

The post I wrote here about how much data people actually use on their phones led to this column questioning the value of unlimited-data wireless plans. It has not won universal applause so far. Ars Technica’s Jon Brodkin astutely pointed out that if you signed up for Verizon’s old unlimited plan long enough ago, you could well save money by sticking with that, even if you have to pay an unsubsidized price for a phone; I was less persuaded by people saying they plow through 15 or 20 gigabytes a month without citing what apps chew up that much data.

On Sulia, I assessed the iOS version of Google Now, shared some quick reactions to my Fosterly Media Match experience, related how much my Nexus 4′s battery seems to like being on WiFi and 3G at the same time, and asked Web admins to make sure that site addresses don’t require users to type in a “www” prefix.

Weekly output: taxi apps, Best Night In, Galaxy S 4 (x3), BuzzFeed, smartphone screens, Windows password prompts, registry cleaners

Posted on April 29, 2013 by robpegoraro

A few items I’ve been working on for a while finally made their debut this week, making me seem far more productive than I really was.

4/23/2013: Road Testing the Newest Wave in Taxi Hailing Apps, The Atlantic Cities

I tried three smartphone apps that let you book and pay for a taxi–Uber, Taxi Magic and myTaxi–for The Atlantic’s urbanite blog. Note the comment I left to pass on an update and a clarification about myTaxi and Uber.

4/24/2013: TV Tech Night, Best Night In

TV Land ran me up to New York in early April to record a few segments about TV-viewing upgrades for its interview series. If you watched Monday’s run of “Everybody Loves Raymond” on that channel, you could have seen all of them; there’s a condensed version of host Leila Sbitani quizzing me at the link above.

4/24/2013: Samsung’s Galaxy S 4 is a No-Touch-Touchscreen, Not-Quite-Android Android Phone, Boing Boing

I reviewed Samsung’s latest Android smartphone. In retrospect, this post was a little too harsh about the Galaxy S 4′s camera and not harsh enough about its keyboard and the counterproductive behavior of some of its gesture-control options. You can read some interesting feedback about this phone’s operating costs in the comments and in a Reddit thread about the review.

4/24/2013: Samsung’s Galaxy S 4 Strives For Sentience, Discovery News

In my second review about this phone, I went into more detail about how the phone’s sensors and accompanying applications aim for an unprecedented level of situational awareness.

4/24/2013: Sizing up the Samsung Galaxy S 4, WTOP

Washington’s news-radio station interviewed me about the phone. (Tip: If you need to do a radio interview over the phone shortly after a baseball game, the steps in Yards Park that lead down to its “waterwall” make for a pretty quiet spot.)

4/25/2013: Feed Me, See More, The Magazine

I dug into BuzzFeed’s image-appropriation habits for this iPad/Kindle/Web publication. I expected to hear griping from photographers who had seen their work duplicated without permission, much less compensation; I and my editor Glenn Fleishman were surprised to get more appreciative responses. (The Magazine costs $1.99 a month to subscribe–an eminently reasonable price! It also lets authors repost their work elsewhere 30 days later, so look for the piece here in late May.)

4/26/2013: Resolved: Competing Over Pocket-Sized Screen Resolution Has Gotten Out Of Hand, Disruptive Competition Project

Many recent phones, the Galaxy S 4 included, go beyond the “pixel density” of the iPhone’s Retina Display to pack in more resolution than you can hope to see without magnification. Why do manufacturers bother, and what could they have done with those engineering and manufacturing resources instead?

4/27/2013: How to keep your computer ‘awake’, USA Today

A stay with family last weekend yielded two items for this week’s column: one about Windows’ ill thought-out interface for changing how often you’ll have to enter your account password, another about the downsides of registry-cleaner apps.

By a huge margin, my most-read post on Sulia this week was a comparison of the purchase and service costs of the Galaxy S 4 on the big four carriers. I also complained about how difficult it can be to share that phone’s multimedia-enriched photos, endorsed using FlightAware to check for air-travel delays, implored America not to judge Washington by the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner, and wondered why company reps shy away from comments threads in stories about their employers or clients.

Updated 4/29 to fix an incomplete headline.

Weekly output: Facebook Home, Android updates, Joe Rospars, social media, smartphone keyboards, smartphone sounds

Posted on April 21, 2013 by robpegoraro

Monday was about as bad of a start to the workweek as I care to imagine; things have been better since then.

4/15/2013: Facebook Home: Social Network Engulfs Android, Discovery News

I reviewed Facebook’s add-on software layer, as seen on the HTC First phone. I did not like it much–how could a company that generally gets the importance of security ship an app that bypasses the entire screen-lock function on Android?

4/19/2013: Yes, Android Updates Are A Mess. What Do We Do About That?, Disruptive Competition Project

The ACLU wants the Federal Trade Commission to crack down on wireless carriers that ship Android security updates late or not at all. Would it help if the FTC made examples of one or two of the worst offenders?

4/19/2013: Joe Rospars fireside chat and “Social media: What’s the next big thing?” panel, Mid-Atlantic Marketing Summit

I helped kick off this one-day conference at Gannett’s Tysons Corner HQ with an onstage interview with Joe Rospars, chief digital strategist for the Obama campaign and co-founder of Blue State Digital (my schtick was to preface each question with one of the Obama campaign’s quirky e-mail subject headers, such as “Hey” or “We could risk losing everything”). That afternoon, I moderated a panel about upcoming shifts in social media with Vocus’s Brendon O’Donovan, New Media Strategies’ Gayle Weiswasser, the Pappas Group’s Lisa Byrne and Susan Ganeshan of newBrandAnalytics.

4/21/2013: Try these alternative keyboard options for your smartphone, USA Today

A reader’s seemingly simple question about physical versus virtual keyboards gave me an opportunity to cover the variety of keyboards available in Android; hearing a Samsung phone’s whistling alert in the Quiet Car on Amtrak reminded me of why it’s a good idea to change a phone’s ringtone and notification sounds from the defaults.

This week’s Sulia highlights: observing a brief outage for some Google accounts; notes on a minute or two of wearing Google Glass; my takeaways from an enlightening discussion about passwords and security; relating an apparently successful attempt to convince Google that “DCA” and “National Airport” are valid terms for the airport closest to D.C.

Weekly output: WiFi refrigerator, social media and government agencies, cord-cutting, QAM encryption, CableWiFi

Posted on April 14, 2013 by robpegoraro

My workweek had better scenery than usual, courtesy of the drive to and from Shepherdstown, West Virginia for my Thursday appointment.

4/8/2013: A refrigerator that thinks?, USA Today

I didn’t write this piece, but a photo I took at CES of Samsung’s WiFi-linked, Evernote-enabled T9000 refrigerator ran with it in print. This is the first time an image I’ve uploaded to Flickr has attracted the notice of a paying customer–which reminds me, I should upload more of the gadget-porn pictures I have cluttering iPhoto.

4/10/2013: Using Social Media to Communicate with the News Media, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

I made that trip to speak on a panel with NBC 4 editor Natasha Copeland and Washington Association of Black Journalists president Donna Walker at the Fish and Wildlife Service’s National Conservation Training Center–a beautiful campus a few miles uphill from town–about how government agencies can tell their story to the press in social media. My key point: Be prepared for the conversation with the general public, even if that means your Twitter presence becomes a tech-support channel. ~~I don’t think they’ve posted video of our chat yet, but I’ll update this if they do.~~ Update, 4/17: The organizers have posted an Adobe Connect recording of our panel.

4/11/2013: Who’s Going To Crack The Cord-Cutting Conundrum?, Disruptive Competition Project

Last weekend’s panel about cord cutting at Free Press’s conference in Denver yielded some useful insights about potential disruptions to the multichannel-TV business that I thought would be worth sharing with a wider audience.

4/14/2013: Tip: Why you need a box for basic cable, USA Today

RCN’s decision to encrypt its entire cable feed–then not offer any cheap way for owners of HDTVs to watch just local channels in high-def–gave me an excuse to revisit a topic I’d last covered for USAT a year earlier. The piece also includes something more positive about the cable industry, a tip about five major services’ initiative to provide free WiFi to all their subscribers.

Sulia highlights for the week: a negative review of WordPress.com’s implementation of two-step verification, a rant about two long-broken features on Intuit’s Mint.com, a note about inexplicable bugginess with Bluetooth file transfer from my Android phone, and an item about how a review phone’s number had come to be included in a long, intensive group-texting thread. (Since I sent my “can you take me off this list?” reply, I haven’t gotten any more messages from that chat.)

Weekly output: ReDigi, Blink, cord cutting, two-step verification, one-time passwords

Posted on April 8, 2013 by robpegoraro

My ongoing campaign to prop up the airline industry led me to Denver this weekend, where I moderated one panel and attended others at Free Press’s National Conference for Media Reform, wrote one of the pieces listed below, escaped the conference for a few hours Friday to see the Rockies’ home opener, and caught up with the old friends I stayed with.

4/2/2013: ReDigi Ruling Shows The Widening Atoms-Vs.-Bits Fracture In Copyright Politics, Disruptive Competition Project

I don’t agree with a judge’s ruling that you can’t re-sell digital music you own, but I can see how he reached that ruling. Not everybody thinks I’m correct–witness the debate I had with a reader on my Facebook page afterwards.

4/5/2013: Stick A Fork In That Browser-Breakup Story, It’s Done, Disruptive Competition Project

I wrote this in part to push back against the blood-feud school of tech journalism, in which every action by Google (or Apple, Facebook, Microsoft or Samsung) must be viewed as a stab at one or all of its rivals. I think Google forking the Apple-driven WebKit browser-engine code shouldn’t be that bad for Apple, may be good for Chrome users–and is certainly helpful for reducing the threat of a Web monoculture.

4/6/2013: Liberating Cable’s Captive Audience: Can Consumers Cut the Cord?, National Conference for Media Reform

I led a discussion about the factors that lead people to drop cable or satellite TV service–and make it hard for competing video providers to enter the market–with lawyer and lobbyist Gene Kimmelman, author and activist Susan Crawford, Netflix public-policy director Corie Wright and Free Press research director Derek Turner. ~~If video surfaces of our chat, I’ll add a link here.~~ 4/25/2013: The organizers added an audio recording of the panel to the session page linked above.

4/7/2013: Q&A: What is two-step verification?, USA Today

I screwed up this post by not mentioning Facebook’s good implementation of the security measure I’d lauded last week. The social network had added two-step verification back in May of 2011, but I’d missed the news that day–the start of a long weekend on vacation and mostly offline–and ever since. After two readers set me straight on my Facebook page, I e-mailed corrected sentences to my (capable and forgiving) editor while waiting to board my flight home from Denver, and she had the piece updated before they’d shut the cabin door.

On Sulia, I revisited my first take on the iPad, three years after that tablet’s debut; noted the announcement of Facebook’s Home app for Android; recounted a few earlier, unsuccessful attempts at weaving social media into the home screens of phones and browsers; and confessed how a couple of audience questions at Free Press’s generally lefty conference made me feel a bit like a right-winger.

Weekly output: Game of Thrones, security, augmented reality, T-Mobile, phone insurance

Posted on March 31, 2013 by robpegoraro

Happy Easter!

DisCo Game of Thrones post

3/27/2013: Ethicists Make Lousy Economists, And Other Lessons From the Endless “Game of Thrones” Debate, Disruptive Competition Project

This started life as a draft here a year ago, when I’d gotten fed up by seeing the same old arguments thrown around on Twitter and in blog posts about the HBO series. Then I set it aside, which turned out be a good thing when I had a paying client interested in the topic.

3/29/2013: Social-Media Trend To Watch: Security That Doesn’t Have To Suck, Disruptive Competition Project

With Dropbox, Apple and, soon, Evernote and Twitter following Google’s lead in offering two-step verification as a login option, I’m cautiously optimistic that this competition will yield more usable security than what the efforts of corporate IT have yielded so far. The skeptical comments this post has since gotten have me wondering if I was too optimistic.

3/29/2013: Augmented Reality Doesn’t Need Google Glasses, Discovery News

I revisited a topic I last covered in depth in a 2009 column for the Post. Part of this post recaps how I still use some of the apps I mentioned back then, part suggests some other possible applications, and then I note how Windows Phone 8′s “Lenses” feature could foster “AR” on that platform. I’m not sure all of those parts hold together.

3/31/2013: Q&A: Is T-Mobile’s new math a good deal?, USA Today

The wireless carrier’s no-contract plans may not save you much money if you buy a new smartphone exactly every two years, but if you upgrade less often–or buy an unlocked phone from a third party–they can work well for you. (And if they foster the growth of a carrier-independent market for phones, they would work well for the rest of us.) The post also includes a reminder to watch out for phone-insurance charges on your bill.

Sulia highlights: calculating how much you’d spend on an iPhone 5 and two years of service at the four major wireless carriers; noting the belated arrival of threaded comments on Facebook pages; explaining why Google Maps doesn’t offer real-time arrival estimates for Metro and other transit systems; critiquing the woeful setup experience on a Linksys router.

Weekly output: Android fragmentation, first-sale doctrine, transparency reports, This Week In Law, iPhoto corruption, geotagging

Posted on March 24, 2013 by robpegoraro

This time of year can bring the potential for serious college-hoops distraction–but not for me, since I was relieved of that worry Friday night. No, I’m not bitter…

3/18/2013: With so much fragmenting, is Android still a single OS?, IT Knowledge Exchange

My friend Ron Miller quoted me at some length in a post about the state of the Android union. Does the linguistic metaphor I chose to describe things work for you?

3/20/2013: Kirtsaeng Dissent Reminds Us Of The Risks Of Foreign Entanglements In Copyright Policy, Disruptive Competition Project

The Supreme Court said the first-sale doctrine–the idea that once you buy a copy of a copyrighted work, you actually own that copy and can loan it, sell it or donate it as you wish–doesn’t evaporate if the copy in question was published overseas. I liked that ruling; in this post, I argued that the dissent to it unintentionally exposed some non-trivial flaws in how we construct copyright policy. I enjoyed this rare chance to dust off my Georgetown education in international relations and law.

3/22/2013: Forget Your Annual Report, Where’s Your Transparency Report?, Disruptive Competition Project

I thought Microsoft was smart to follow Google’s lead in documenting how many inquiries about its users it gets from law enforcement around the world–and that other tech companies should learn from this example.

3/22/2013: #203: Power Hour Pounding, This Week In Law

I was back on this podcast for the first time since last July, and this time the chatter focused heavily on drinking. I assure you that there were serious intellectual-property dimensions to that part of the conversation I had with fellow guest Ali Spagnola and TWiL hosts Denise Howell and Evan Brown.

(Fun fact: Until writing this, I didn’t realize that my phone includes ringtones by Spagnola.)

3/24/2013: Tip: Repair mode in iPhoto will restore thumbnail icons, USA Today

I was a little worried that my Q&A about dealing with iPhoto database corruption was a little esoteric, but then a reader commented on my Facebook page about her substantially-worse experience: “My entire database was corrupted [....] I had masters and edited pics existing in different places.” There’s also a reminder about not letting a phone’s geotagging function expose where you live.

On Sulia, I quoted approvingly from the Supreme Court’s Kirtsaeng ruling, explained why I’m not too interested in Google Keep, gave some early praise to Microsoft’s transparency report (that item got a mention on Slashdot), and commented on the fallacy of complaining about “taxing Internet sales”

Weekly output: SXSW (x2), Google Reader, bookmarks, Galaxy S 4

Posted on March 17, 2013 by robpegoraro

Another travel week ends as it should: me at home, photos from the trip posted, expenses duly categorized in Mint and a flurry of LinkedIn invitations sent.

3/13/2013: SXSW Sights: Silly Robots and Serious Wi-Fi, Discovery News

This year’s SXSW didn’t feature any breakout apps, or even a particular category of app that had people excited. Here, I wrote about the panels, talks and demos that caught my interest instead–and noted the conference’s most pleasant surprise, reliable, fast and free WiFi almost everywhere I went.

3/15/2013: Digging Into A Few Of SXSW 2013′s Disruptive Dreams, Disruptive Competition Project

In this SXSW recap, I focused more closely on a few topics that interested me at the festival: 3-D printing, HTML5 apps, mobile finance and our not-fully-rational responses to transformational technology. I wrote about three-quarters of this on the plane home; the remaining one-fourth took the last three-quarters of the time.

3/15/2013: What’s the big deal about Google Reader’s demise?, USA Today

Google’s surprising (and, to many, infuriating) announcement of the July 1 shutdown of its Google Reader RSS service sparked this column, posted a couple of days early. I thought about linking to the “Hitler finds out Google Reader is shutting down” Downfall parody video, but I wasn’t sure all of the potential audience would be hip to the joke.

3/15/2013: Can the new Samsung Galaxy S4 take on the iPhone?, WTOP

D.C.’s news station had me on the air for a couple of minutes to discuss Samsung’s latest flagship smartphone. (Samsung invited me to what turned out to be a hot mess of a launch event at Radio City Music Hall; I opted not to run up to NYC the day after getting home from Austin, but part of me regrets not going.)

Sulia worked well for sharing my notes from SXSW in something close to real-time: for instance, highlights from Oatmeal cartoonist Matthew Inman’s keynote, details about one startup’s dubious patent filing, and a glitchy demo of Siri’s Eyes Free Mode in a Chevy hatchback on the show floor. I also noted Google’s backpedaling after a stupidly terse post had people thinking the company was ending support for the open CalDAV schedule-syncing standard.

Rob Pegoraro

Occasional shop talk about journalism, technology and a few other things

Category Archives: Weekly output